Bagpipes Get in the Way of Romantic Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert

Hopefully one Chesterfield, England man is not living under the bridge after a snafu with a Valentine's Day gift to his girlfriend — what he thought were tickets to a concert by her favorite band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

But what Duncan Robb didn't notice was that the tickets, which he purchased months in advance when he spotted them for only $42 online, were actually for the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. The Scottish cover act, which performs bagpipe-centered arrangements of pop and classic rock tracks, bill themselves as "the most famous bagpipe band on the planet."

He printed out the tickets and gave them to his girlfriend on Christmas Day. The pair planned to travel from England to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the show was taking place.

“When I clicked on and got tickets in row Q and for £30 each, I thought what a bargain, there must not be many tickets left and snatched them up straight away," he said. "Also, I saw the date was February 10, so I could make it into a Valentine’s Day weekend — kill two birds with one stone.”

But apparently neither of them studied the printed tickets too closely. Last week, Robb's girlfriend tried to look up the show's opening act, only to discover the problem two days before they were to leave. She couldn't find the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing anywhere in Ireland on that date. That's when she took a closer look at the actual tickets, which had by then been mailed to them, and discovered the difference a few letters can make.

“[We] just had to laugh about it—what else was there to do! The only saving grace was that we had found out three days before and not while we were in the arena!" he said.

Despite the error, the couple followed through on their plans to see the show — with their airfare and hotel already booked — and Robb reported on Twitter that "It was an experience ... couldn't believe the variety of songs they could play!" He even shared a video from the pipers' concert, for those who didn't believe that's how the story turned out.

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers' agent Douglas Gillespie said it's not the first time someone has made that mistake, which is why they take special care with their advertising. "We’re always extremely careful in all advertising," Gillespie said. "We’ve made sure to put kits and bagpipes on all the pictures. We would never ever try to pass ourselves off as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we respect them too much."